By the year end of 2006, tens of millions of US consumers have already suffered from identity theft at least once in their lives. A very common and simple scheme used by con artists is to steal the credit/debit card or checking account number and name from a consumer. This can be easily done, for example, through the waiters or cashiers in restaurants, hotels, or stores. The con artist then collects the personal background information of the account holder from the Internet. This can also be easily done today. After using the account holder's background information to open many accounts with online merchants based on the stolen credit/debit card or checking account number, the con artist quickly conducts a shopping spree before the financial institution, which issued the credit/debit or checking account, has detected the fraudulent activities and closed the account.
In addition to fraud in online shopping activities, con artists can easily steal the user ID and password from an account holder of a financial institution by either traditional approaches such as buying the information from dishonest employees, or by technology-based schemes, such as phishing. Once the con artists obtain the user ID and password, they can do almost anything they want with the financial account. In fact, many financial institutions have disclaimed their liabilities if the financial losses are caused by stolen user ID and password at no fault of the financial institution. As a result, many consumers have become innocent victims of the fraud.
To further complicate matters, some dishonest consumers may also deny their own online activities by claiming that they are the victims of identity theft.
Billions of dollars have been lost every year through these fraudulent online activities. In addition to financial losses, it is a time-consuming and painstaking process for a victim to clear his/her bad records and credit history.
Moreover, in addition to the traditional online financial transactions such as bill payment, online person-to-person money transfer such as the services provided by PayPal, Money Gram, etc, can also be easily used to conduct money laundering and terrorist financing activities. Since most online money services businesses cannot really verify the true identity of an account holder, a terrorist or other criminal can easily open an account with online money services businesses based on fake identification information and any email address, then send money to another terrorist or criminal through online money services businesses. As a result, our national security is also under severe threat by these online fraudulent activities.
Therefore, there is an urgent need for governments, financial institutions, merchants, and consumers to eliminate these crimes and online fraudulent activities.
Several methods have already been proposed by different inventors in the past. For example, it was suggested that a consumer can store his/her biometrical information, e.g., fingerprint, in the commercial database of a merchant or a financial institution and such biometrical information can be used to authenticate the consumer's identity before completing online transactions. One problem with this approach is that biometrical information is guarded by most consumers as private and confidential information and thus biometrical authentication is not generally accepted by consumers.
Besides, it is relatively easy for an experienced con artiest to steal the biometrical information from a person as we have already seen in many movies. Moreover, once the biometrical information is stolen from a person, there is not much this person can do to fix the problem. For example, if a person's fingerprint is stolen, the person cannot cut off his/her finger or somehow change his/her fingerprint. In other words, biometrical authentication may actually induce permanent damage to a person's biometrical identity.
It has been proposed to use an Integrated Circuit (“IC”) card issued by a financial institution which contains the private key of a private-public key pair. The private key is used to encrypt the electronic message which the IC card holder gives to the financial institution to conduct an e-commerce transaction. When the financial institution receives the electronic message, the financial institution will use the public key of the private-public pair to decrypt the electronic message which was encrypted by the private key and conduct the transaction according to the instruction given by the IC card holder.
In essence, the known system uses the private key inside the IC card to determine whether the IC card holder has the authority to give instructions for a specific account. Therefore, the private key has the same effect as an identification number of the IC card holder. Although the private key is embedded inside the IC card and is not easily available, such a key is a “fixed” key for each account holder. With the expected advances in computer technology, it is just a matter of time before con artists will be able to decode such an encrypted message and figure out what the private key is. Once the con artist has obtained the private key, the con artist can duplicate the key and conduct fraudulent online transactions based on this key.
Furthermore, there are some additional burdens in this approach. The keys used in private-public key cryptography have some mathematical structure. For example, public keys used in the RSA system are the product of two large prime numbers. Thus, public key systems require longer key lengths than symmetric systems for an equivalent level of security. A key length of 3072 bits is suggested for systems based on factoring and integer discrete algorithms which aim to have security equivalent to a 128-bit symmetric cipher. In other words, private-public key systems will become very expensive because they demand a tremendous amount of computer processing power for each online transaction.
Moreover, a monumental effort will be required to replace the existing systems in the financial institutions, and each consumer will have to go through a complicated account opening process to obtain a special IC card with a private key from one or more of the financial institutions before he/she can conduct online transactions. Since such IC cards are granted a great deal of authority in financial transactions, distributing such keys require special processes and extra caution.
More seriously, if fake or stolen identification information has been used to obtain the IC card, it can be easily used by money launderers or terrorists to conduct money laundering and terrorist financing activities because the identity of the account holder is not truly identified. For example, a notorious terrorist can use that IC card to conduct all kinds of online transactions under the cover of another person who actually opened the account.
Since the 9/11 tragedy, many governments have strictly enforced anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing laws. In fact, a large number of financial institutions in the USA have already received an aggregate amount of hundreds of millions of dollars of penalties due to their failure to enforce anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing measures as required by laws. Compliance with anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing regulatory requirements has become the top priority for financial institutions in the USA. Identifying the true identity of a person who conducts the transaction is essential to enforcing anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing measures.
Although biometrical information can be used to ensure that an IC card holder is also the true owner of the IC card, as explained before, such a use of biometrical information is not generally accepted because of privacy concerns. And without adequate verification of the user's identity, a conventional IC card will only open a new door for money launderers and terrorists.
Most governments have imposed anti-money laundering, anti-terrorist financing, and other anti-crime obligations upon financial institutions to monitor transactions. These financial institutions have to, for example, (1) verify and record the identification information of all parties in the transaction, (2) check all parties of the transaction against the “blacklists” published by various governments and report or block the transaction, and (3) detect any suspicious activity and report it to the government agencies.
The scope of transactional monitoring as required by law is actually very broad. For example, if a financial institution has identified that several different customers are sending money to the same recipient and the aggregate amount is very large, the financial institution has to study who the recipient is and whether they are financing terrorist activities. If the financial institution identifies any suspicious activity, the financial institution has to report the case to government agencies.
If the financial institution identifies that a customer is sending a wire transfer to a recipient, whose name somehow is very similar to a name on a blacklist published by the government, the financial institution cannot send the wire transfer out until it has proven that such a recipient is not the person on the blacklist.
Although it is required by laws, transactional monitoring is not possible in today's online transactions because the financial institution cannot verify who the remote parties really are. Consequently, financial institutions cannot really fulfill their legal obligation to enforce anti-money laundering, anti-terrorist financing and other anti-crime measures in online transactions.
Furthermore, many con artists are utilizing this weakness of the financial industry to commit all kinds of fraudulent activities. The present invention intends to enable financial institutions to fulfill its legal obligation and, at the same time, to reduce all fraudulent activities.
With modern technologies, government authorities can store a great deal of machine-readable personal identification information within a person's official identification document. For example, the stored identification information may include name, date of birth, identification number, social security number, address, expiration date, biometrical information such as a fingerprint, an iris pattern, a picture, etc.
Encryption has been used often in data transmission for security purposes. However, it has become much easier to decode an encrypted message with today's advanced computer technology. In a recent competition, an encrypted message based on Data Encryption Standard (“DES”), which was once the national standard adopted by the US government, was decoded by experts within less than 24 hours.
Since it takes time for a perpetrator to decode an encrypted message, it is desirable to change the encryption key frequently. If the sender and recipient are notified of the key information whenever a new key is used, the sender and the recipient can always know what the current key is. However, such a key change notification is practically impossible when a large number of users are involved.
In this document, the terminology “network” or “networks” generally refers to a communication network or networks, which can be wireless or wired, private or public, or a combination of them, and includes the well-known Internet.
In this document, the terminology “computer system” generally refers to either one computer or a group of computers, which may work alone or work together to accomplish the purposes of the system.
In this document, the terminology “computer network” generally refers to either one network or a group of connected networks, which may work alone or work together to accomplish the purposes of the network.
In this document, a “bank” or “financial institution” is generally referred to as a “financial service provider”, which encompasses either a bank or a non-bank where financial services are provided.
In this document, a “bank account” or “financial account” is generally referred to as an “account for financial transactions”, and encompasses accounts in either a bank or a non-bank where financial transactions are conducted by means of payment instruments such as cash, checks, credit cards, debit cards, gift cards, monetary instruments, electronic fund transfers, letter of credit, etc.
In this document, “money services” are generally referred to money-related services such as money transfer, bill payments, check cashing, gift card purchase, etc.
In this document, a “symmetric encryption algorithm” is generally referred to an encryption algorithm which uses the same key to encrypt and decrypt the data. For clarification purposes, an encryption algorithm using a private-public key pair to encrypt and/or decrypt the data is not a symmetric encryption algorithm.
In this document, the terminology “terminal,” “self-service terminal,” or “kiosk” generally refers to a piece of equipment which interfaces a user with a computer network, so that the user may interact with computer systems and other equipment connected to the computer network.
In this document, the terminology “PDA” or “Personal Digit Assistant” generally refers to a portable device which interfaces a user with a computer network, so that the user may interact with computer systems and other equipment connected to the computer network.
In this document, the terminology “machine-readable” generally includes all the reading methods that can be conducted by machine through a variety of media such as electronic, magnetic, electro-magnetic, optical, etc. and a combination of them.
In this document, the terminology “official identification document” generally refers to a passport, a driver's license, an alien registration card, a state issued ID, an identity card, a certificate of legal status, and other official documents and information bearing instruments that identify a designated individual by certain verifiable characteristics, that are issued or certified by a consulate, embassy, government agency, or other governmental authority, and that are protected against unauthorized copying or alteration by the responsible government or authority. In particular, such “official identification documents” can be formed from various materials and can embed the identification information in various formats, including printed on paper, embossed on a plastic card, written on a magnetic medium, programmed into an electronic device, stored in a memory chip, and combinations thereof. The “identification information” may include, but is not necessarily limited to, names, date of birth, identification numbers, tax identification number, expiration date, signatures, addresses, passwords, personal identification numbers, photographs, fingerprints, iris scans, physical descriptions, and other biometric information.